Colors
by xcoloursandpromises
Summary: It takes her years to figure out the meaning of the word "home". — A retelling of the FireRed/LeafGreen games, with the female player character. Eventual Conflictingshipping/ORS.
1. Prologue - Thistle and Weeds

**A/N:** I replayed the games and got the teensiest bit nostalgic. I know there's a whole host of people who are against it but, damn it all, I want FR/LG remakes, and _I want them right now_. Until Nintendo and Gamefreak get their stuff together, however, I will be forced to make do by writing shameless fic. I plan on updating this every Thursday, or, if that doesn't pan out (my work schedule can get kinda sporadic sometimes) late Wednesday.

About the story: It's basically a FR/LG retelling... novelization... _thing_ , following the female player character. Because let's face it, Red always has all the glory. She'll be going by the name of Leaf, the fanon (? I'm pretty sure it's only fanon, anyway) name for the female PC. There will be some eventual Conflictingshipping/Oldrivalshipping (i.e., player x rival), but that comes _way_ later. They're like, _ten_. So, some hinting, some kiddy fluff, but no kisses and stuff like that until later.

This chapter is quite short, but it's only the beginning, my friends! Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

 **Disclaimer** : I don't own Pokémon!

* * *

 _look over your hills and be still_

 _the sky above us shoots to_

 _kill_

 _rain down, rain down on me_ _— mumford and sons, thistle and weeds_

* * *

 **Prologue**

 _The last thing she remembers before the darkness are her parents._

 _Later, her memory of them will become so cloudy that there will be nothing but the brief feeling of warmth, with them — but as of then the memory is fresh, and clear, and she can see them in the deep and dark of her memory._

 _Her father, big hands and bigger heart, eyes like hers. Hair like hers. Teeth, so white they're nearly blue and glinting in the fluorescent lights._

 _Her mother, so demure and quiet, blonde and striking. A soft and singing voice, so calm and lovely, and she loved her, hadn't she? She'd_ loved _her. She said so._

 _She remembers this lightbulb-flash-image of them before the warmth got too hot, before the bed she laid in got too cold and a Pokémon scream-sang._

 _There is a sound like fluttering wings and something very soft, and her mother is crying and apologizing but she doesn't sound very sorry. There's a bird and a dragon, fire and ice, and then there's nothing._

 _Nothing at all._

* * *

The rain fell heavy on the tiny town, the downpour uncharacteristic for that area of Kanto. In fact, the weather was uncharacteristic for _any_ area of Kanto — the region was usually quite mild, and the sudden storm had most people tutting in confusion.

 _Rain, like this? Sure it's autumn, but this is ridiculous._

It had left Pallet Town in the throes of annoyance, honestly — even the more mild-mannered of the citizens, like Delia Ketchum, could only frown at the stone gray skies and the seemingly endless downpour that came from them.

"Quite the storm," she murmurs, driving slow through the thick haze of rain. Rudy, her Growlithe, whines in agreement from the passenger side as they swerve down the winding streets. "We're almost home, though. Then we can start up a nice fire, have some cocoa, get cozy — how's that sound?"

Rudy yips excitedly in agreement. It's the only real _uplifting_ part of all this rain — to be able to snuggle up to his favorite human after her long shift at the laboratory, to doze to the sound of the rain outside. There's the thunder to consider, sure, but that could be ignored if there was a fire nearby.

Really, he's just ready to _sleep_ —

Delia slams down suddenly on the breaks — hard enough for Rudy to nearly go flying off the seat. He barks in alarm, tiny paws slipping on the upholstery, looking in confusion as his former-trainer-current-owner slides quickly out of the driver's side and into the ice-cold downpour.

Rudy jumps over the gear-shift and attempts to follow, but thinks twice once he sees how heavy the rain is; he pauses on the driver's seat and strains to hear over the weather.

"Oh, sweet mother of Mew," Delia curses, and even with Rudy's superior eyesight, he has to squint to realize his human has picked something up — a bundle, limp, from the middle of the road.

Rudy whines when she approaches the car, swinging the back door wide open and laying the bundle gently inside. "That cocoa is going to have to wait," she tells her Growlithe apologetically, before sliding back on the driver's side and making a beeline for Pallet Town Memorial Hospital.

Rudy whines, knowing the smell as soon as it hits his sensitive nose — he's smelled it before, had smelled it after nearly every battle he'd ever participated in.

The smell of burning skin and fabric, burning fur — only it's not fur, it's hair.

 _Human_ hair.

He turns slightly to try and glimpse the bundle — it is a girl, a human girl, too young to be considered anything except a pup. She is half-turned in on herself and shivering, buried in a pink blanket that seems to swallow her whole.

"At least the rain's stopping," Delia says, and Rudy tears his gaze away from the girl long enough to see she's right — the rain _is_ stopping, leaving golden streaks of sky behind in its wake and a rainbow, glimmering brightly in the distance.


	2. 1 - Leaf

**A/N:** Oh, the emotional roller coaster that is a new story. I am so excited for this. Thank you all for reading, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

 **Disclaimer** : Still don't own Pokémon!

* * *

 _when she was just a girl,_

 _she expected the world._

 _but it flew away from her reach,_

 _so she ran away in her sleep. — paradise, coldplay_

* * *

 ** _1 - Leaf_**

She's been waiting for this day for months.

The postcard had come in mid-January, a good five months before school had been scheduled to get out for the summer. It was supposed to be the end of Leaf's third-to-last year at the trainer's academy; just one more monotonous stepping stone before she could claim her first Pokémon and join her classmates in their region's rite of passage.

The postcard was an oddity buried in the usual stack of bills and junk mail, and it had caught Delia's attention right away. She recognized the glossy image on the front — _how could she not, when she still had her own tucked away in a sixteen-year-old scrapbook hidden under her bed?_ — and something in her chest had tightened at the sight of it.

The three likenesses of a Charmander, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur grinned up at her, and with them came the passing thought: _she's only ten_.

The thought is linked to a question, a question that's only confirmed when she flips the card over and catches her daughter's name on the first line.

The tightening in her chest released a little as she scanned the professor's curving print, and her troubled frown curved into a proud grin, and then she gasped, excited.

"Leaf!" she yelled, up the stairs. " _Leaf_ , I think you should come down here!"

* * *

It had wound up being an invitation of sorts, a reward for her high grades and test scores. _You're second in your class,_ the professor had written, _and you've got potential_.

Leaf hardly had time to wonder if favoritism was at work, here — her mother, Delia, had worked as an aide for Professor Oak for many years before eventually breaking away and starting up her own Pokémon clinic, right out of their home. She'd stopped working for the good professor, but their friendship had remained steady, and some of Leaf's earliest memories in Pallet Town involved her in the sprawling yards at the Oak corral, feeding a Miltank or playing with the Oddish.

The worry is only solidified when she finds out who her _partner_ for the professor's little "project" is — his grandson, Blue Oak.

As if sensing where her daughter's train of thought was heading, Delia had set the postcard down and looked her in the eye. They were both seated at the kitchen table, discussing starter Pokémon and gym leaders. "He wouldn't be asking if he didn't honestly think you had potential," Delia said, seriously. "This project is important to him. He's been working on it for years, since before _I_ was an aide. He wanted someone he could trust."

Leaf had nodded, but still wondered why he would choose two _ten-year-olds_ , of all people.

* * *

So, fast forward three and a half months.

Fast forward to one day in early April, with ten-year-old Leaf Ketchum anxiously glancing at the clock beside her bed and choosing to kill the hours until noon by watching an old video of an Indigo League match online.

Danika Montgomery's Nidorino versus Agatha Halliwell's Gengar. Danika had been an ace trainer, legendary among amateurs, and pretty damn decent among her peers.

She was down to her last Pokémon when this match was shot, frustrated with the knowledge that even if she _did_ somehow manage to defeat Agatha, there would be no way she could get around to beating the final Elite Four member, Lance the dragon master. Still, she had battled with all her might, as much as she could until Gengar was finally down. She had then, miserably, moved on to Lance, only to get predictably and thoroughly trounced by his Gyarados.

Leaf is halfway through her match with Agatha, biting nervously at her thumbnail as the climax of the fight begins. Nidorino is on his last legs, about to unleash a barely-effective poison sting at his foe, when somebody knocks at Leaf's door.

The ten year old taps the spacebar of her laptop to pause the video before yelling, "Come in!" She has a pretty good idea of who it is, mind, and suddenly finds a completely new reason to feel nervous.

Delia pokes her head in, grinning, her own eyes glimmering with the excitement Leaf doesn't feel just yet. "Ready, dear?"

Leaf swallows the lump beginning to form in her throat, and smiles weakly at her mother.

"Ready."

* * *

She tries to convince herself this trip to the professor's lab is like any other trip to the lab — like any other field trip or visit, like all the playdates she and Blue had when they were young. It's not so weird, she tells herself, it's _just_ the professor.

 _Just the professor who's going to change your life forever…_

Leaf gulps, dragging her feet across the dirt road leading to the lab. She doesn't know why she feels so nervous when she _should_ feel _happy_. She's getting an opportunity most kids her age would only ever _dream_ about — to get her starter Pokémon two years before the mandated age in Kanto, to get to work under Professor Samuel Oak as his _assistant_ , to travel across the region, across the _world_ if she really wanted —

Leaf should be ecstatic. And she _is_ , really — except for the Butterfree that can't seem to stop swarming in the pit of her stomach.

She arrives at the lab minutes later, and tries not to groan at the sight before her — wrapped around the wrought-iron gate separating the lab from the rest of the world are a crowd of reverent onlookers (mostly idiots from her school) all chittering, all chattering, all fawning over the pompous and proud figure sauntering up the stairs.

The screaming girls, the envy-ridden boys — Leaf wades through them all until she can finally rip herself away from the crowd, push through the gates, and stumble onto the stairs. She huffs when she's finally out, only to hear a series of _humphs_ and grumbles coming from within. Her pale cheeks flush prettily when she catches the tail-end of some statements.

 _Oh, don't tell me_ she _was picked._

 _Are you serious?_ She's _the other trainer? Her test scores couldn't have been_ that _high!_

 _Oh, poor Blue, having to go off the same time as her._

 _This isn't fair; why should_ she _be able to go on a journey the same time as Blue?_

Leaf tries not to think about the obvious jabs and angry grumbles, or the jeering snorts coming from a group of particularly cruel boys — Blue's best friends, she remembers with a small shiver. She won't shrink under them — she refuses to, not now, not when she's had more than half a decade to steel herself against the nastiest of the gossipers.

She will admit, though — listening to them now and trying to ignore them is a hell of a lot different than burying herself in a book in the back of the classroom.

She quickens her pace as she ascends the stairs, if only to get away from the crowd sooner, but slows down considerably when she nearly crashes into Blue. He blinks twice at her when she accidentally sidles up beside him, his green eyes flat and decidedly unimpressed.

He cracks a mean grin.

"Hey, Leafy," he drawls, taking a swaggering step forward. She ignores the nickname, once cooed affectionately by Delia, now used as a condescending jab by the worst of her bullies. "Finally made it here, I see."

For the umpteenth time, Leaf curses herself for being so good at schoolwork. She had one job — stay safely in the shadows — and she'd broken her self-imposed rule by accidentally being good at taking tests. Go figure.

They had been friends, once upon a time. Her and Blue. A metaphorical dream team — Nidorina and Nidorino, Umbreon and Espeon, the non-twin version of "double trouble". Back when they were younger, less enthused by the idea of champions and the pageantry of the league, back when _gyms_ and _battles_ were simply words, not yet promises.

They'd drifted over the years. She can't pinpoint an exact cause — maybe it had come after his parents' deaths or the lingering threat of her social worker, or when she got too quiet and he got too clever and everyone else got too cruel. She doesn't know why it'd happened, she just knows looking at Blue's dumb cocky face now only invokes annoyance in the pit of her gut, instead of the long-gone warmth he used to give to her.

"You just made it here _too_ , you know," she grumbles, shoving her way past him in a rare show of aggression. She's usually pretty quiet, Leaf — she likes the shadows. Likes the safety. She thinks, maybe, it's part of the reason the word _freak_ has become synonymous with her name.

Blue is still, somehow, _strangely_ , one of the only people that can spark something akin to fight inside her. Perhaps it's because they grew up together.

More likely than not, it's because he's still the only one on this Earth who can get her this _angry_.

There is a pause afterward, where she's able to make it up three more steps, and he follows close behind her. "D'you know which one you're picking?" he asks suddenly, all business. " _I_ do."

"Good for you," she snaps. She wouldn't tell him the truth — that she _did_ have a choice all picked and planned out, and she had for months now. It's just a matter of getting to that precious Pokémon before Blue does.

* * *

It's a lot different, entering the lab this time. Leaf had practically grown up here — she had spent long summer days at five, six, seven years old, skipping through these halls and learning _all_ about the Pokémon here.

But it's different now; she's ten now, ten years old and it's the start of the rest of her _life_.

"Hello — Leaf, Blue." The good professor's voice rings out suddenly, drawing Leaf's gaze to his chair in the corner of the room, and the strange machine whirring beside it. But neither of those things capture her attention for very long before she sees what's _in_ the machine — three pokéballs, all shiny and new.

"I see you got my postcards," Oak continues, smiling slightly once he sees where Leaf's — and even Blue's — attention had drifted. "And yes, those are the Pokémon."

He makes his point quickly — he can see the ten year olds' feet are already itching, their hands clenching and unclenching with the desire to be filled. He shows them the Pokédexes — prototypes only, unfortunately, blank slates on which they needed to record the data on all the Pokémon they capture.

The Pokédex, they are explained to for perhaps the millionth time since their first meeting in January, is only a prototype, an electronic encyclopedia he would one day like to have handed out with trainer cards across the region — perhaps the world, if it's revolutionary enough. They are the only two trainers in the world to get one right now, and it's the sole reason they are even being allowed this opportunity.

The standard graduation age for trainers in Kanto and Johto is twelve — eleven, if their scores prove worthy enough. Leaf and Blue are presented with this chance if only because they are the top two in their class, in the _school_ , the ones who have proved to the stars and beyond that not only were they outstandingly clever, they had the drive necessary to undertake such a task.

This is why Oak asks them, to push them to the top a year early — to begin the Pokédex project anew — for their journeys to _really_ begin.

"Now," he says, clapping his hands together, once he's all done, "I believe I promised you Pokémon in exchange for this?"

This gets their attention, immediately — the energy around the two children seems to spike and buzz. Professor Oak tries to bite back a knowing grin, gesturing to the machine where the pokéballs are.

"In each of these pokéballs lies a very special Pokémon. The three Kanto beginner Pokémon, that all new trainers are able to receive — usually — upon graduating from their town or city's respective trainer academy. However, since your graduation has been… sped up, so to speak, they are available to you now. Your choices are —"

"Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle," Blue blurts, practically brimming with excitement. "We _know_ , Gramps — can we pick our Pokémon now?"

Blue's impatience is hardly anything new, and while most adults might be offended by his hastiness, Professor Oak only laughs. "Of course, of course, I'm sorry. Now, Leaf, you can get the first —"

Whatever the Professor might have said next is drowned out, his voice tapering off when Blue impatiently bolts forward and plucks a pokéball from the machine. "I choose this one!" he says, releasing the Pokémon inside with a flourish.

" _Squirtle_!" the Kanto region's signature water-type coos, blinking up at Blue with sweet brown eyes.

The professor sighs, his eyes only softening when he sees his grandson scoop the tiny turtle Pokémon up in his arms, holding him close and tight.

"He looks so tough," Blue says proudly, and the Squirtle blinks again, looking momentarily confused before shrugging.

Leaf tries hard not to growl, at her rival or in frustration, in general, remembering Blue's words outside the lab.

 _D'you know which one you're picking?_

 _I do._

Of _course_ he did — he'd always liked to make other people _miserable_ , and that included her. Maybe _especially_ included her. So of _course_ he'd make it a point to take the Pokémon he must've always _known_ she'd wanted, more than any other.

This realization is only cemented when she catches his eye, and the smug glimmer hidden there. She glowers at him when she steps up to make her own choice.

She considers the machine, and the remaining pokéballs for a moment, before deciding she's got nothing to lose, really. Her first choice is gone, and she's mostly indifferent towards the thought of raising another Pokémon — she'd honestly never given it much thought before — so she closes her eyes and gives a quiet, defeated sigh when she picks one at random.

"Charmander!" the professor exclaims, when her hand closes around the pokéball on the right. "A very good choice — you should raise her patiently."

* * *

 **A/N:** I've pretty much already got their teams picked out. Blue's will be his in-game team with one minor change because plot. So. There's that. As for Leaf, I've pretty much got her mostly planned out, but there's two slots that are subject to change as of now. If you've got any opinions for Pokémon you want on her team, just let me know! Who knows, I might change my mind for it. They're certainly flexible spots.

Anyway, thanks again for reading!


	3. 2 - Rose

**A/N:** I'm having too much fun laying out this story. I hope you enjoy the chapter!

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Pokémon!

* * *

 _pink toes pressed against the carpet_

 _show your face and finish what you started_

 _the record spins down the alley, late night_

 _be my friend, surround me like a satellite — zella day, east of eden_

* * *

 ** _2 — Rose_**

Charmander _is_ adorable.

Even Leaf, throughout all her bitter resentfulness, has to admit it.

She feels her anger and frustration ebb and fade quite abruptly when the little lizard appears before her, in a flash of bluish-white light. It's a female, is Leaf's first observation — a healthy female, with slick orange skin and a big, bright flame on the tip of her tail. Big blue eyes blink up at her, two sapphires inset in an adorably round face.

She's quite a bit smaller than Leaf thinks she should be —a little underweight, some inches too short. The runt of whatever litter the professor had plucked her from, obviously, but still healthy, still glowing.

"Hi, there," Leaf says, a little dumbly, once she finally finds her voice.

The charmander's tail flame seems to flicker in consideration as she regards the human before her. "Char," she murmurs, a little shyly, bringing her tail up and around as a shield for her body, hugging the tip close to her chest.

"My name is Leaf," Leaf continues quietly, ignoring the eyes of the professor and Blue as they observe the interaction happening. "I hope we can be good friends."

"She's a bit timid," Professor Oak interjects gently, breaking the mood quite abruptly. Leaf straightens, and looks up at him. "But she's sweet as sweet can be."

Leaf can already see _that_ much — the little charmander had toddled forward as the professor talked, sniffing her outstretched hand before beginning to nuzzle up to her.

"She doesn't _look_ strong," Blue says unnecessarily, bending down to scrutinize the little fire-type.

The charmander shrinks under his gaze, yelping a little and running towards Leaf, cowering slightly in the young girl's arms. Blue snorts.

"Look at her! She's just as much of a scaredy-meowth as _you_ are, Ketchum! You're a _perfect_ match —"

Leaf feels her cheeks heat a bit in anger. Scooping the little charmander up, her eyes narrow in a bold glare at her former friend. "You don't know, Blue. Maybe she _is_ tough."

Blue scoffs, his own green eyes narrowing in a challenge. "I bet my squirtle could knock it out silly," he snipes, meanly. The aforementioned water-type seems to shift uncomfortably in his new trainer's arms.

"Squirtle, squirt…"

"I'll take you up on that!" Leaf says impulsively, her temper flaring once more. A little voice in the back of her head begs her to quit while she's ahead, but she's feeling bold today, and she's got a Pokémon with her, now.

So _what_ if it's Blue? They're even now — for the first time in years, they're on an even playing field.

"Sounds like a challenge, Ketchum!" he growls, a pleased glimmer in his eye. "Fine, then — meet me outside." There is an unspoken _for your pummeling_ he doesn't say because of obvious company, but Leaf hears it. She stiffens as he moves past her, nodding politely at his grandfather before gathering up his Pokédex and his five starting pokéballs.

He leaves, the lab door slamming behind him when he goes. Leaf stays stock-still for a long moment, the charmander still in her arms, and does not move until Professor Oak finally sighs, "Just like his father, impatient as always."

Her stomach knotting up again, she grabs her own equipment and follows suit.

* * *

Leaf takes her time descending the stairs leading up to the lab, halfway hoping Blue would deem her a waste of time and be gone, but unsurprisingly, he's still there, waiting for her at the base of the property.

The crowd is there, too, all looking at her with barely-concealed animosity as she approaches. Except now, there's the faint sense of wariness, too — all to do, Leaf figures, with the Pokémon in her arms.

Blue's posse lingers near the front. Emmanuel Thomas, Jackson Bertrand, and Amanda Yellow all keep the widest berth as she nears, their glares intense. She tries and fails to suppress the shiver that rolls through her body in response — bullying had, for some reason, just been Leaf's reality for the past three years. She isn't sure why; she just knows kids are cruel and Emmanuel, Jackson, and Amanda are some of the cruelest.

Leaf had always said Blue was her worst bully, but in reality it was only half-true; in reality, he's just the _ringleader_ of her worst bullies. Despite all the malicious teasing and name-calling, he had never physically harmed her, that's true — but he'd never been around to stop his pals when they decided they wanted to push her around like a rag doll on the playground, either.

She's almost scared that's going to be the outcome here, but then the charmander in her arms wriggles impatiently, wanting to be let down. It serves as a reminder — she has a _Pokémon_ now, something no one except for Blue can say. A kind of protection no one — even the big kids like Emmanuel, or the rough kids like Jackson, or the smart kids like Amanda — can say they have or can challenge.

Leaf lets out a slightly relieved breath. "Are you ready for this?" she asks the charmander, when Blue takes a battle stance, his squirtle hesitantly copying him.

Charmander looks slightly uneasy, and it's only a guess as to why — Blue's squirtle looks quite a bit bulkier, is definitely quite a bit bigger.

" _Char_ mander," she says, and it sounds like a yes.

* * *

"Squirtle, use tackle!"

Leaf isn't surprised that Blue chooses to start off offensively; it matches his attitude perfectly, to be this reckless, this rough. Squirtle hesitates for a moment before shooting forward, intending to slam hard into Charmander's side.

"Dodge it!"

Charmander ducks out of the way just in time, her smaller, sleek body dancing around the squirtle's propelled form.

"Go for another tackle!"

"Growl!"

The fire-type twists around suddenly, letting out a growl that echoes through the small field outside the lab. It sends shockwaves pulsing towards Blue's squirtle, who pauses, deterred only slightly before he picks himself up and tries to ram into her again.

Charmander manages to just barely push herself out of the way, getting knocked into rather roughly before swinging in the other direction. Her tail moves slower than the rest of her body, however, the appendage quite a bit heavier as it accidentally slams into the squirtle's stomach, knocking him to the ground.

Onto his back.

The crowd is stunned into silence, the quiet only punctuated by the panicked, frustrated cries of the incapacitated water-type. He can't get up; he's trapped on his back, rocking miserably back and forth.

Leaf's mouth moves before she can think it through entirely. "There's your chance! Scratch it!"

Her charmander moves on autopilot, it seems, bolting forward, razor sharp claws hooking into exposed flesh. It's not quite enough to break skin, but it's enough torment for the upperclassmen who'd been acting as referee to finally yell "Enough!" and give her the match.

Both Charmander and Squirtle are breathing heavily, but the latter is still whimpering long after the former crawls off of him. Blue grits his teeth as he recalls his Pokémon.

"You got lucky, nerd. That's _all_ ," he snarls at Leaf, moving past her and back towards the lab, probably to heal his injured Pokémon.

Leaf doesn't stick around to see how the crowd might react to their pride and joy's loss; Amanda Yellow already looks murderous, her brown eyes blazing with fury — and _oh,_ Leaf thinks, a little sarcastically, _really, how_ dare _she do this to poor, innocent Blue._

She ducks her head down low and grabs her charmander, bolting away from the throng of kids.

* * *

If her poor Pokémon is at all confused by her sudden retreat, she does not show it.

She does seem a bit concerned at the bumpiness of the run home, however, cooing concernedly when Leaf finally stops, trying to catch her breath on her front porch. Leaf is quick to brush it off, however, giving the fire-type a broad, easy grin.

"Sorry about that. But hey, you did awesome back there! Seriously, you're _tough_!"

The charmander's orange cheeks seem to tinge pink; her blue eyes skip away, a quiet smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Charmander, _char_."

Leaf smiles gently down at her. "Anyway," she begins, "This is my — _our_ house now, I guess. I just need to pick up my stuff and say goodbye to my mom. Then, we'll be off!"

The little lizard growls in excited glee, but pauses midway, her little face scrunching up in discomfort for a moment. Leaf is about to ask what's wrong when the little fire-type suddenly sneezes, her tail flame flaring for a moment, smoke billowing out through her nostrils.

Leaf lets out a surprised yelp.

"Oh, mother of _Mew_!" she gasps, frantically patting at the hem of the red skirt she'd been wearing, trying to get the soot stains off.

"Char?" Charmander sniffs, looking apologetic. Leaf laughs, trying to brush it off like it's no big deal — because it isn't, not really, not in the grand scheme of things.

"It's alright — it's coming off. Let's go inside, yeah?"

* * *

Leaf will be the first to admit that fire-types had never been her first pick for, well, _anything_.

In all the years she'd studied the variety of Pokémon living in Kanto, in all the years she'd spent imagining and then reimagining what kind of team she'd have once she left home, she'd rarely put a fire-type into the equation, except for one.

Fire-types had always just seemed so… _unapproachable_ , for lack of a better word. Wild and majestic and untamable, living flames too passionate to be kept locked inside a pokéball. The only exception for that had been her mother's old growlithe, Rudy.

For a long time, as a younger child, Leaf had entertained the idea of Rudy being her first Pokémon, of being the one to help her get started on her journey. Of course, he wouldn't have been used for battling — he'd been old already when Leaf had first started attending the trainer academy, and he didn't seem to miss his glory days of badge-winning alongside Delia as much as Leaf thought he ought to.

Rudy had loved Leaf. He had been protective of her from the moment Delia had adopted her and brought her into her home. He'd follow her to school, walk her to Oak's lab for playdates, would wait patiently out on the sidewalk in front of the school for her classes to end so he could walk her back home. She had been _crushed_ when he'd finally gone.

Charmander might be another exception, Leaf thinks as they enter the kitchen. She's a fire-type, sure, but she doesn't match Leaf's idea of what she thinks fire-types _should_ be — she is by no means temperamental or haughty, or even at all _untamable_. Quite the opposite, really — she's sweet and timid and quiet and _perfect_.

A squealing voice breaks her out of her train of thought, as she wanders into the kitchen. "Oh, you're back already? And what an _adorable_ Pokémon! Charmander is such a good choice!"

Charmander squeals at Delia's loud, sudden appearance, scrambling to hide behind Leaf's legs. Leaf sighs, trying to nudge her out. "Hey — it's alright. It's just my mom."

She whimpers, eyeing Delia warily. "Char?"

The older woman seems to have noticed her mistake, and quickly backtracks. "Oh, did I yell? I'm sorry, Charmander. I didn't mean to frighten you. I'm Delia." Her voice is considerably softer as she leans down to be at eye-level with the Pokémon, who warily leans forward in Leaf's arms to sniff at Delia's outstretched hand.

"Charmander, char?"

"Oh, she's _precious_ ," Delia says, her face crumpling at the innocent sapphire blues staring up at her. "This takes me back, it does. I really wanted to pick a charmander when I first became a trainer, you know. Woke up three hours late, though, and wound up with old Rudy —"

Leaf smiles, watching as her mother takes her Pokémon into her arms, the charmander humming in pleasure.

* * *

Eventually, they're on the road again.

Leaf had lingered a little longer than necessary to grab her go-bag and triple check that everything was where it was supposed to be; then, her mother had kept her for an extra half-hour to remind her of all the essentials, the necessities, and _to be careful, please_.

Leaf tries not to think too hard about the look in her mother's eye when she'd left the house. As if she was regretting letting her daughter go on this journey in the first place.

Leaf had always known her mother to be overprotective — and, given the less-than-ideal way Delia had _found_ her, seven years prior, Leaf couldn't say she blamed her mother for being worried. In fact, she had been quite surprised her mother had been so easy to convince to allow her to _go_ on this journey.

"Everyone grows up eventually," had been Delia's only response, and she'd actually sounded _tired_ during that conversation, so unlike her usually bubbly demeanor. She'd conceded that although it would be dangerous to allow a ten year old girl venture the world on her own, with Pokémon at her side, she would be _safe_. Delia put a lot of faith in the bond between Pokémon and trainers, and knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime shot, so she hadn't said no, even if she'd wanted to.

Leaf is out to prove her mother had been right in allowing her to go — that she can be tough, that she can stay safe, despite the circumstances in which she'd arrived in Pallet.

She's not defenseless anymore. She has Charmander.

Something occurs to Leaf, then, and she glances over at the little fire-type walking beside her. "You need a nickname," she says, abruptly. "I mean, I _could_ keep calling you 'Charmander', but that seems like it could get old pretty quickly."

"Char," she growls in agreement, blinking those big blue eyes up at her trainer.

Leaf considers for a moment. "Okay… well. Huh. Blaze?"

Charmander wrinkles her nose in distaste.

"No, no. You're right. Too predictable, I guess. Hm… well, nothing fire-related. That'd be dumb. Um… well, you're all orange and red. Scarlet?"

A shake of the head. Charmander looks contemplative for a moment, before quickly becoming distracted by a passing butterfree. Leaf watches curiously as the little fire-type tries to billow smoke out at the wild Pokémon, who playfully bats its wings, sending the smoke billowing back.

Charmander sneezes. The butterfree dances alongside a nearby wild rosebush, which does a good job in distracting the little fire-type again; this time, she pushes up against the tight red and white flowers, sniffing curiously.

"Rose?" Leaf suddenly calls, testing the word out on her tongue.

"Char?" Charmander turns to glance at her, the flowers momentarily forgotten.

Leaf smiles. "How about Rose? Do you like that name?"

Charmander seems to consider for a moment before nodding eagerly.

Rose it is, then.

* * *

Route One is teeming with Pokémon. Leaf had always watched the overgrowth from her bedroom window, which had given her _just_ enough of a view to spy a Pokémon or two, if she'd timed it right. Route One is like near-forbidden territory; always had been, growing up, complete with an invisible line that every adult in town said to Never Cross, Ever.

It's a bit strange to be venturing out onto the grass so casually now. She half-expects something horrible to happen — a pidgey horde, a raticate with rabies, a flock of angry spearow — but nothing ever does. Rose is ridiculously curious, sniffing along the edge of the dirt path.

It's like this for the first hour — Leaf watching her new partner and giggling whenever Rose gets distracted, by a bug or a flower or what have you. There is one instance where she actually gets in a scuff with a rattata with a bad attitude and Leaf has to spend a few long moments applying antiseptic to the various cuts.

It's not exactly how Leaf imagined her first day on the road — it lacks the grandeur and splendor, the shining knight and Rose isn't a squirtle, but it's still pretty perfect as far as she's concerned.

* * *

They're reaching the end of the route by the time Leaf figures she should probably catch new Pokémon. The entire trip up until then had just been watching the scenery, getting comfortable with her surroundings and with Rose, but then she spies another rattata and gets determined.

This one is a healthy male gnashing on a few berries when Rose finds her. "I wanna catch that one," she murmurs to Rose, who suddenly looks like she has a bit of stage fright at the mention of another battle. "Will you help me? We'd get a new teammate."

Rose looks a little troubled, perhaps even skeptical, but eventually nods and cautiously moves closer to the rattata. It looks mean — mean and tough. Still, she stands her ground and tries to glare at it.

"Rose, use scratch!"

The charmander ducks forward, moving quickly but clumsily, sharp claws hedging to take a swipe at the rodent's face. The rattata yelps in anger when it's hit, rolling off to the side before spinning back around and baring its impressive fangs.

Rose staggers back, frightened by the sight of them, but Leaf is adamant. "Don't back down, Rose! You're alright, you can do it — try another scratch!"

Rose shakes off her fear and surges forward yet again, trying to take another swipe. The rattata snarls, moving fluidly and meeting the scratch with an unusually powerful tackle. Rose is thrown to the ground, and before she can get up, the rattata is gone, disappearing into the underbrush.

"Aw," Leaf groans, disappointment evident. Rose sits up from where she'd been sprawled out in the grass, looking near-tears with distress. She whimpers.

Leaf's brows furrow as she approaches her partner. "Hey now, you're okay. So, we didn't get that one. We'll get the next one, I'm sure!"

Rose gives a final, smoky sniff before she tentatively stands again, wobbling a little on her legs. "Char!" she yips, enthused all over again from her trainer's optimism. A rustle in the grass draws her attention away from the human, and pretty soon Leaf spies familiar determination burning in the charmander's eyes.

The fire lizard bounds off into the undergrowth, and Leaf follows close behind to see what had caught her attention — and what she sees makes her stop in her tracks, blue eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

Rose had, in a sudden desire to do better and get a new teammate for Leaf, decided to square off against a pidgey she'd heard in the brush. The tiny bird looks a bit wary, but otherwise uninterested in the charmander's attempts at declaring battle.

"Rose, it's okay," Leaf whispers, her voice so low that she's not even sure if Rose had heard her. She takes a cautious step forward, muscles tense and ready to grab her Pokémon and run for the hills if need be. Her heart feels like it's about to beat right out of her chest, the strangest desire to cry overtaking her senses.

Leaf _hates_ birds.

She isn't sure why, exactly — it's one of those sort-of-pointless fears, like being afraid of clowns or hair. Relatively harmless until you started thinking about murderous zombie clowns or lice.

Until you started thinking about sharp beaks and black eyes, and burns — burns from flames, flames everywhere.

Vaguely, she registers Rose beginning without her direction — the little lizard loping forward to begin scratching, the pidgey retaliating with a tackle of its own. Another scratch. A sand attack. A growl. The barrage of moves is a predictable back-and-forth, a battle that's classically textbook.

Halfway through the battle, Rose seems to pause, looking momentarily nauseous. She suddenly hiccups, only instead of the usual smoke billowing out, it's an actual _flame_.

The fireball hits the pidgey square in the stomach, sending it flying backwards and into a tree. It seems to anger the tiny bird, squawking indignantly at the scorched feathers of its underbelly.

The ember obviously hadn't been very hot, then — but it's enough to jolt Leaf out of her stupor, to register the situation and quickly scoop Rose up, to sprint away in the opposite direction. Rose's tail flame is hot, but not hot enough to burn as it brushes against her leg — she's coming down from her adrenaline high.

"I'm so sorry," Leaf pants to the disappointed charmander when she finally settles down enough to stop running. They're at the edge of Viridian City now, only half a mile shy of the town line.

The little fire-type looks confused as she blinks up at her trainer — confused, and the slightest bit concerned.

"I'm so sorry," Leaf repeats, and even though it's only Rose, she feels so embarrassed. "I know you only wanted to help. You even learned a new attack — that ember was _awesome_ , by the way — it's just — no birds, yeah?" Leaf tries to smile at her new friend, choking back the feeling of rising bile. "I don't care what we catch. Anything, just — no birds, okay? Not — not yet."

And poor Rose, she looks so confused, but she nods anyway.

* * *

 **A/N:** A quick side-note: the poem "Childhood Sweethearts" by Ashe Vernon is Blue/Leaf or Blue/Red through and through, and I recommend everyone go read it as soon as possible. If you google it, it's the first link to tumblr.

Anyway! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! The next chapter is short, and sort of a filler, so I might just shove it in a tad bit early, along with the usual Thursday update, depending on how far I get with the chapter I'm currently working on. I love writing this thing, but honestly, I _hate_ writing Pokémon battles. If anyone's any good at them and willing to give me tips, I am all about that.

Thank you for reading!


	4. 3 - Viridian

**A/N:** This is a shorter update, but it felt weird to slap more onto this. I like where it ended. Hope you all enjoy!

In which Leaf and Rose finally get to Viridian City, and run into someone they'd rather not.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Pokémon!

* * *

 _so, nothing is perfect,_

 _...but there has to be something better. — a toast, ashe vernon_

* * *

 ** _3 — Viridian_**

They arrive in Viridian City just as the sky is beginning to become streaked with ribbons of pink and orange and gold.

Rose is back to dozing, this time in Leaf's arms as she walks along the humming city sidewalks. Her mother had told her to go immediately to the nearest Pokémon Center, upon entering any new city.

Most cities in Kanto, and even some routes, are riddled with Pokémon Centers — specialty clinics that offered free services to trainers, like healing and shelter and food. They're like safe-havens in the world of battling and badge-collecting, and the nurses are said to be a trainer's best friend.

Leaf frowns, attempting to open up her town map — a gift given to her by Blue's sister Daisy, of all people, just days before — and _not_ jostle poor Rosie around too much, cradled in her arms as she is. Eventually Leaf gives up and just keeps walking, until she runs into a blue-haired policewoman.

"Excuse me, officer," she says, a little hushed so she wouldn't disturb the small fire-type, "You wouldn't happen to know where the Pokémon Center is, would you?"

The officer smiles. "New trainer, huh? It's two streets over, sweetheart — big white building with a red roof. You can't miss it."

* * *

Eventually, Leaf finds the mentioned building — it really is hard to miss, when she finally finds it, and she marvels at it; the big white building, the vibrant red roof, the lobby that might have been teeming with trainers, if Viridian was a city with an open gym.

As it is, Viridian's gym hasn't been open for over a year now, and the city got very little traffic as a result. The lobby is near-empty, save for a pink-haired nurse at the front desk, her accompanying chansey, and one lone trainer, sitting on a love seat by the television.

One very _familiar_ trainer.

Leaf stiffens on impulse once she recognizes the head of spiky brown hair and the relaxed posture. It can only _be_ one person. Quickly, she squares her shoulders and fast walks up to the counter.

"Excuse me," she says to the young nurse, "I was wondering if you could heal up my Pokémon, please?" Rose isn't terribly injured or anything, but she's pretty exhausted, and Leaf figures a check-up won't hurt.

The young woman looks up from her copy of some coordinating magazine, perking up immediately at the sight of the dozing charmander in the other girl's arms. "Oh, of course. Chansey?"

"Chan _sey_ ," the pink Pokémon trills, coming from behind the counter to gently take Rose from Leaf's arms. The charmander shifts a bit in her sleep. She watches both Pokémon go with a faint smile before casting a quick glance towards where Blue is sitting.

He looks terribly engrossed in last month's issue of Poképal Magazine, and doesn't look up, even when she has to pass him to get to the video-phones pushed together by the public PCs.

She feels a bit unnerved, being ignored by him when he'd done nothing but constantly bully and pester her since their friendship ended two years ago, but ignores it to punch in a phone number on the keypad.

The phone rings twice before the screen flickers to life. Her mother is smiling broadly from the other end, auburn hair tossed up into a messy ponytail. She looks a little rushed.

"Hey, baby."

"Hi, Mom," Leaf says, shifting slightly. She'd promised her mother she'd call once she reached Viridian, but now that she has, she's not really sure what to say. Especially not with Blue lingering just within earshot. Mew only knows _what_ kinds of names he'd sling at her — baby, wuss, Mama's girl, it doesn't even matter. Leaf doesn't want to hear it.

"You're already in Viridian City?" Delia asks, sounding impressed, drawing Leaf out of her thoughts. "That's wonderful! It took me _ages_ to get to Viridian — I was so busy catching _so_ many new partners. Did you catch any more Pokémon?"

Leaf flinches, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. "Um — no. There was this rattata, but — it — got away." A deep flush stretches across her cheeks and spreads down her neck. Magazine pages are rustle behind her.

Delia gives her daughter a sympathetic look. "Aw, baby. That's disappointing, but don't worry — there will be plenty of other rattata. One isn't the end of the road. Now, you should just —" something offscreen seems to catch her attention, suddenly, and her eyes widen. "Oh, _no_!"

Leaf blinks. "Mom? What's wrong?"

"It's Mr. Gonzalez's persian — his paw got hurt — I was trying to bandage — Jaden, _no_! I'm sorry baby, I've got to go — we'll chat later, buh-bye!"

The video-phone clicks off suddenly, and Leaf has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from sighing in relief. She loves her mother, really, but she's happy to be away from _that_ conversation. She leans back and takes a deep breath, jolted out of her thoughts quite suddenly and rudely by a cocky voice behind her.

"So, you got nothing, then?"

Leaf tries not to jump, but she does stiffen automatically at how _close_ he is. She clears her throat. "I'm _sorry_?"

She can hear the grin in Blue's voice. "You trekked all the way through Route One, got here late, and you couldn't catch a _single_ Pokémon? What a waste of a Pokédex."

Leaf bristles, her face stained crimson in shame when his words register. She shifts nervously, trying not to squirm under his scrutiny. "Like _you've_ done any better? We've only been gone a few hours."

Blue lifts a brow, as if daring her to make that challenge. The smirk still firmly in place on his lips is enough to tell her to back off, but she doesn't, tilting her chin up in a rare show of defiance against him. He sighs, lifting his hands up, releasing all his Pokémon with a flourish.

"Squirtle!" his squirtle cries, front and center. He blinks up at her, mouth lifting in a greeting grin. Behind him, two other Pokémon materialize — a female rattata, chittering up at her, and a male pidgey, blinking up at her with beady, dark eyes.

Leaf tenses slightly at the appearance of the pidgey, so close to her now — she backs up a small step and swallows the surprised squeal she feels bubbling up in her throat.

If Blue remembers her fear of birds at all, he chooses not to comment on it, instead deciding to preen over his little team. "You've met Ronan," he says, gesturing to his squirtle proudly. "Now I'd like you to meet my two newest teammates, Leafy. This is Mary," he gestures at the rattata, "and Sky." He points to the pidgey, who coos softly, still keeping those intense, dark eyes on hers.

"Hi," Leaf says, and hope she doesn't sound too breathless. Blue is saying something else, but she's not really listening, and only prays he's smart enough to realize what's happening and recall his team before she feels the urge to run again, like she did on Route One. It's not even that poor Sky is _doing_ anything — just his presence alone is enough to make Leaf tense, enough to have her head spinning.

Eventually, she's saved by the kind, pink-haired nurse at the reception desk. "Miss? Your charmander is fighting fit!"

Almost as if to prove it, a squeal of "Char, char!" is heard, along with the _click-clack_ of nails on tile. Rose skids to a stop right beside her trainer, blinking up at Blue with wide, nervous eyes. "Charmander?"

"Squirtle, squirt!" Ronan calls, directing Rose's attention towards the tiny turtle. Her whole demeanor seems to change, then, her eyes lighting up, her tail flame flickering excitedly.

She tackles the water-type in a play-wrestling match. Blue shouts in alarm. "Oi, Ketchum, call your dumb lizard off!"

Leaf frowns, annoyance replacing her earlier fear. "Calm down, Blue. They're just playing."

A quick glance on Blue's part confirms Leaf's statement — the two Pokémon are only play-wrestling, and Ronan seems to be letting Rose win, the charmander perched triumphantly on top of his shell.

"They were probably friends before they joined us." Leaf says softly. She hadn't paid much attention back at the lab, but it made sense now — they had to have been together long before Blue and Leaf had showed up, being young and likely separated from the other Pokémon in the corral as they were prepared for beginning trainers. They probably hadn't had anyone but each other then, and maybe the Bulbasaur that hadn't been picked.

Blue snorts, looking as though this hadn't occurred to him. "Yeah, I guess."

The two lapse into a silence that's only kept from being awkward by the playful squeals coming from their Pokémon, who have since managed to coerce a shy Mary into joining the fray. The little rattata is quick on her feet, trying to help Rose cage Ronan into a corner in a two-on-one mock-fight.

Leaf watches them until she feels something tug on her shoe — looking down, she barely has time to squelch a scream when she sees a curious Sky pecking at the aglet of her untied shoe. She stumbles back, folding her arms in an attempt to hide her shaking hands. " _Mew_ , Blue! Could you please —?"

He moves, quicker than she would have given him credit for, scooping Sky up into his arms and depositing the tiny bird next to his now-quiet companions. He frowns at a heavily-breathing Leaf.

"Still scared of birds, then?"

She looks up, that wild fear still present in her eyes. "I — yeah."

There's some strange softness in his gaze that lasts for just a moment before it's gone, melted away, and he gives her a disgusted frown. "That's _pathetic_. Come on, you guys." He waves a carefree hand.

Mary skips away to follow her trainer obediently. Ronan gives Rose an apologetic smile before crawling off of her and following suit. Sky takes the longest, staring at Leaf with something akin to apology before he, too, is following Blue out of the lobby.

Leaf is still shaking, breathing a little heavy. She knows — she _knows_ it's not poor Sky's fault, and she knows this is going to be one _long_ journey if she can't at least try to get over this irrational fear. Kanto is teeming with bird Pokémon, after all — she _needs_ to get over it, and get over it quick.

"Char?" Leaf's eyes shift to meet Rose's, all big and blue and full of concern.

She smiles. "I'm alright, Rosie. Thank you. Let's go get a room, yeah?"

Rose's tail flame seems to flicker in agreement.

* * *

They settle down for their first night together in relative comfort. The room the sweet nurse at the front had given her was sparse, pulled together with only a single, stiff bed, a dresser, and a bedside table with a small, lonely lamp. Certainly better than what Leaf imagines staying outside would be like, but it still serves as a fairly vivid reminder that she's not home anymore.

In fact, it sort of reminds Leaf of a motel she and her mother had stayed in a few years ago. They had gone as far as Pewter City on an errand from Professor Oak, Leaf tagging along because Delia hadn't known anyone she could stay with at the time. The motel had been little more than a pit stop between cities, an overnight stay that had come about in the wake of an unanticipated storm.

The room in the Pokémon Center reminds Leaf quite violently of it — she'd only been about six at the time, and the memories were shoddy at best, but she remembers it now, sitting at the foot of the bed with her bag settled in her lap. Rose sniffs the floor curiously, sneezing a few times at any unfortunate dust buneary she happens to run into.

She takes her time getting ready for bed, trying to ignore the faint nagging of homesickness that tugs at the pit of her belly as she navigates around the lonely little room. She'd said goodbye to her mother earlier that night without a second thought, but now she's feeling the urge to tiptoe back into the lobby and call her back.

Eventually, the young girl settles again, cozy in her pichu-print pajamas, under the scratchy brown blanket. Rose jumps up after her new trainer, cozying up beside her on the bed.

Leaf stiffens at her Pokémon's movements, eyeing her bright tail flame warily, but Rose is careful and maneuvers around it with practiced ease. Leaf figures it makes sense, since she'd lived in captivity all her life and had to find _some_ way of not setting everything on fire.

They settle back down, trainer and Pokémon facing each other in the darkness of the room, curled up under covers. The fire on Rose's tail gives her a muted glow, the look of something like a halo behind her.

"I'm sorry." Leaf says, quietly. Rose tilts her head to the side questioningly. "I'm sorry I've been such a big baby. First the pidgey on Route One, and then Sky — you must be thinking the same thing Blue did. You must think I'm pretty pathetic."

"Char, char." Rose shakes her head in a negative, vigorously. Leaf smiles weakly.

"Well — thank you, then. I — I _am_ sorry, though. I don't know why I hate birds so much. I mean, I always have. Even when I was a kid, real little, at Professor Oak's — I've always been terrified of them."

The little lizard blinks sleepily at her trainer, and Leaf thinks she doesn't quite know how to help her with this. The ten-year-old smiles when in the end, Rose just decides to scoot closer, burying herself in the blankets.

Leaf drifts off to sleep, warm and content. It's _definitely_ not how she'd imagined her journey beginning.

She doesn't quite mind, really.

* * *

 **A/N:** Ugh, this seems super short. I don't like it. But it's just a filler — the real fun begins next chapter, I promise!


	5. 4 - Sparky

**A/N:** Chapter four. Leaf catches a Pokémon. Blue's a big bully, but he actually redeems himself this time. Just a little. Sorry this chapter got out a little later than usual, but I was called into work last minute and didn't have any time for proofreading. I still made the deadline, though!

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Pokémon.

* * *

 _the woods are lovely, dark and deep,_

 _but i have promises to keep_

 _and miles to go before i sleep —_

 _and miles to go before i sleep — robert frost, stopping by woods on a snowy evening_

* * *

 _ **4 — Sparky**_

"So, according to the nurse at the center, the next gym is in Pewter City."

Leaf considers her town map for only a moment longer before glancing nervously at the gate leading out of the city and to the forest — a necessary burden she'd have to pull through if she wanted to make it to the next town. Rose twitters nervously from her perch, clinging to Leaf's shoulder.

There was usually a side road, she remembers — an alternate route for the saner citizens or young trainers wanting to get to one town or another. But the road is currently down, something about a colony of wild diglett ruining the main path and creating safety hazards. It's going to be at least a month before it's operational again, and Leaf isn't about to waste that sort of time _just_ to avoid the forest.

Then, Viridian Forest had never _just_ been a forest. Perhaps it's just the rumors making Leaf so shaky — the rumors that those woods are _alive_. Perhaps it's the whispers about the beedrill, or whatever other countless species of Pokémon inhabit the deep and deadly thickets.

Perhaps it's the dark, the nightmares playing in the back of her head.

* * *

They say it's unsafe to go into Viridian Forest alone — that if you had no other option _but_ to travel through the undergrowth, you needed a tough team of Pokémon. Armed with only Rose, Leaf considers herself grossly underprepared, but it's not as though she has much of a choice. Catching one of the rattata that make their nests outside of the forest would hardly help her.

It's either by a sympathetic hand of fate or cruel destiny that she runs into her least favorite person by the forest entrance. She hadn't seen Blue since the little scene in the Pokémon Center lobby the night before, and she'd actually hoped he'd gone ahead before her.

Unfortunately, Leaf had no such luck.

"Following me, Ketchum?" Blue snipes when he sees her, eyes narrowing. Ronan is hanging delicately off his shoulder, and he trills in greeting when he sees her and Rose. Blue shoots his starter a scathing glare, which has Ronan's mouth snapping shut, abashed.

"It's hardly following if we're going in the same direction," Leaf points out, frowning a bit.

He doesn't have any reply for that. She can tell. He shifts uncomfortably for a moment, looking as though he wants to say one thing, but eventually settling on something else. "I talked to Gramps this morning."

Whatever she'd thought he would say, that _definitely_ isn't it. "Oh?" She's not sure what this has to do with her.

Blue avoids looking at her directly. "Yeah. He told me to wait for you." He looks extremely displeased by this fact, his lip curling in a scowl. "He seems to think neither of us can make it through some dumb forest without the other. And he'd kill me if he found out I went ahead and left his _precious_ pride and joy, the great _Leaf Ketchum_ behind. _So_ …"

He lets her fill in the blank. She shifts uncomfortably at the "pride and joy" comment — his grandfather's affection for her had always been a sore spot for him, even back when they'd been friends. It hadn't changed over the years; in fact, it might have only worsened when her test scores got higher. She suspects half the reason Blue had studied hard enough to claim such a high spot in the class roster is because he'd wanted to catch up with her, wanted to catch all the attention Professor Oak bestowed on her.

Of course, it's all speculation, but once her mother pointed it out to her, it made sense.

She clears her throat, glancing down at her shoes, still shiny and new, the telltale mark of a greenhorn trainer. " _So_. You wanted to go together?"

His scowl deepens further in disgust. "I don't _want_ to. I'm saying I _have_ to."

It's a ridiculous excuse, and they both know it. Something in her gut twists at his tone, though she isn't sure why — this _certainly_ isn't the first time Blue's been mean to her, and it definitely won't be the last. "Well then," she says, after a long moment, "I suppose we should get this over with, then."

Blue looks at her incredulously. "What, it was that easy?"

Leaf sighs, swinging her bag around so it sits more comfortably across her shoulders. "Why shouldn't it be? I don't feel like getting mauled by any beedrill swarms, and there's safety in numbers, right? Let's go." Her voice is dripping with cool practicality, and though he's hungry for a fight — he's _always_ hungry for a fight — he can't find one here, and so follows her into the woods without a word more.

* * *

Viridian Forest is _huge_.

A labyrinth of gargantuan trees and treacherous overgrowth suffocates the area. People have called Viridian Forest a maze, and while it's easy to see why, a path had been carved over time by passing travelers, creating one relative path to go through.

Still, despite the path, Leaf knows if she ventured so much as ten feet off the main road, she'd be good and lost. It's a mildly terrifying thought, but one that's quelled quickly when she reminds herself all they need to do is stay on the road.

Rose whimpers slightly at the hanging threat of the foliage alone, her timid nature getting the better of her. Leaf would have tried to comfort her, except Ronan beats her to it, the little squirtle gallantly striding beside his old friend, puffing his chest out importantly.

If anything, it at least amuses Rose. The fire-type lets out a smoky giggle, pulling her tail up and around her body, pressing her smile into the appendage much like a lady would with her hand when laughing.

"You're ridiculous," Blue snaps affectionately at his starter, who deflates immediately and grumbles up at his trainer.

It's Leaf's turn to grin, here — Blue might have been a thorn in her side, but he seems to be on good terms with his Pokémon, at least. She bites the inside of her cheek to school her features back into something relatively neutral before he can see, though.

The woods are quiet as they walk — lovely, dark and deep, with sunlight filtering through the gaps in the trees. They travel without conversation, the air punctuated by either the giggling of their Pokémon or the faint buzz of a bug-type in the trees overhead.

"You'd think we'd find _some_ Pokémon by now," Blue mumbles irritably, half an hour into their journey. "Just a weedle. Just _one_. Then, I'd be happy —"

"Why _weedle_ , of all things?" Leaf asks reasonably, glancing down to consult the map in her hands, "Weedle mean kakuna, and kakuna mean beedrill, which are mean and vicious and should be stayed away from at all costs. I'd rather see a caterpie."

"Well _nobody asked you_ , Ketchum," Blue snaps, huffing in annoyance. "Just… _something_! Another person, a Pokémon, I don't _care_ —"

"Blue?"

"I know these woods are dangerous and everything, but _still_ , it's big enough that you'd think _something_ lived here —"

"Blue!"

"I mean, this is ridiculous, we haven't seen _any_ _Pokémon_."

" _Blue_ —"

"I want to _battle_ , I can't _stand_ —"

A hand claps itself over Blue's mouth, silencing him, and the young boy glares viciously at the hand's owner. The anger quickly evaporates, however, when he sees that his rival's round blue eyes are focused on something else, something in front of her. Blue follows her gaze, his heart very nearly stopping in his chest when he spies what had caught her attention.

It's a Pokémon. A small, yellow rodent, minding its own business, licking its paws and washing its face with them. Its tail was in the shape of a thunderbolt, two distinctive red patches marking its cheeks. He racks his brain for the names of the Pokémon living in this dumb forest, but he's drawing up blanks on what this one is called.

"Pikachu," Leaf breathes after a moment, and it clicks very suddenly, information pouring in like he's looking directly at a Pokédex entry for it. Her hand drops from his mouth to fall limply at her side.

"Electric mouse Pokémon," Blue continues quietly, padding softly forward to try and get closer. The pikachu's ears perk up, dark eyes wide and wary on Blue's now-frozen form. "Extremely rare, and extremely timid. They live in dense forests and gather during thunderstorms. When they unleash the electric energy stored in their cheeks, the power can be equal to that of a lightning bolt."

He shifts slightly. The pikachu's eyes follow him.

Leaf is quiet for a moment before she continues where Blue left off. "They use their tails to check their surroundings, and have a very distinctive pose when doing so," she murmurs, remembering reading about this species in her class on the biology of mammalian Pokémon, last semester. "And sometimes, very rarely, lightning will strike them when they're in that pose. They're very intelligent, and will roast hard or unripened berries with their electricity before eating them."

She kneels down, her movements slow and calculated. "That one," she murmurs to Rose, who'd gone as still as her trainer at the sight of the other Pokémon. The charmander nods in understanding, taking a hesitant step forward, but Blue seems to be ahead of the game.

He orders Ronan forward with little more than a meaningful look — the Pikachu hardly sees his water gun coming until it's pushed back several feet by the blast.

"Pika…" the electric mouse whines, pulling itself to its feet. The water gun doesn't seem to have done much more than annoy it, those small dark eyes narrowing into an impressive glower as it shakes the water from its fur.

Blue realizes too late what's about to happen — he tries to tell Ronan to use withdraw, to enhance his defenses somehow, but the squirtle isn't fast enough to avoid the oncoming electric attack. Thundershock is notoriously weak, usually, but Ronan had never experienced one, and being a water-type, hardly stood a chance.

Blue shouts in anger when his starter falls to the forest floor, dazed and unable to fight. Leaf feels a little bad, to take advantage of the situation the way she does, but she'd be fool not to, not while the pikachu is distracted — and it is, giggling maliciously into its paws as Blue fusses over his fallen partner.

"Get close, Rose," she instructs quietly. The charmander does as she says, crawling forward slightly, getting surprisingly close before the pikachu notices, and by then, it's too late. "Ember!" Leaf cries, and at such a short range — well, it's over before it even starts, in the end.

Or, at least, that's what Leaf hopes. The pikachu is knocked back, taking a hard hit against a particularly large rock. The young trainer winces at the slight _crack_ it makes on impact, but shakes off the concern when the pikachu stumbles shakily to its feet.

"Scratch it!"

It tries to spring into what Leaf assumes is a quick attack, but Rose has better reaction time, and rears back, her claws glinting so much in the filtered light of the forest that they actually seem to _glow_ before swiping the pikachu hard across the face. Leaf frowns, wondering for a moment if she'd just imagined that.

Her attention is redirected when the pikachu stumbles to the ground for a third time, but before it can try and get back up again, Leaf fumbles for a pokéball and _throws_.

She watches the familiar white light encase the felled electric-type, waiting with baited breath as it shakes.

One.

Two.

Three.

The device clicks shut and lies still for a second. Two seconds. Five. Ten seconds later, and Leaf finally manages to move, stepping forward to pluck the red and white capsule from the grass. It's warm — the telltale sign of a new life living inside.

"No _fair_ ," Blue whines from behind her, Ronan slung haphazardly under his arm, " _I_ wanted the pikachu. Do you know how _ridiculously rare_ those things are?"

"You've already got teammates," Leaf says absently, turning the capsule over in her hand. She's absolutely awed, her whole body buzzing with excitement. "And now _we_ do too! I think I'm gonna call it Sparky," she says, letting out an overjoyed squeal before turning to Rose.

She pauses, blinking at her partner.

The fire-type is sitting on the forest floor, looking absolutely worse for the wear. Tiny jaw chattering, whole body shuddering, a slight yellow hue running across her orange scales.

Paralysis.

Leaf remembers reading about it, a while back, during the status ailments unit — but panic is beginning to cloud her thoughts, and she isn't entirely sure how to fix it anymore. Instead, she takes the charmander gently into her arms, holding her gingerly.

"Char…" Rose shudders again, leaning into her trainer's warm embrace.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Leaf says quietly, "I didn't — I didn't even _realize_ —"

She struggles to remember how exactly paralysis is caused, and how to fix it, but all her knowledge on status ailments seems to fly out the window now that she's _actually_ facing it. She knows the pikachu must've been the cause, but she doesn't know _how_ — it hadn't even used an electric attack, so how could —

"Static," Blue says, his voice ringing clear in the empty air of the forest. "Pikachu's special ability. It must have activated during that last scratch attack." He glances from Leaf to Rose, something unreadable in his expression. Ronan jumps from his trainer's arms, having regained consciousness, and bends forward to look worriedly at his old friend.

"Squirtle, squirt?"

"Charmander, char."

Blue bends down, digging through his bag for something. "Normally you'd use paralyze heals, you know. Those are ideal, but I spent my last hundred pokédollars on potions in Viridian. Try this." He removes a few small red berries from his pack, holding them out for Leaf.

"Cheri berries," she says, eyes alight in recognition. She takes them tentatively, giving Blue a grateful smile before helping Rose eat them. The little fire-type has some difficulty chewing, but eventually she gets it down — Leaf sighs, relieved, when the berry begins to take effect and the shuddering finally stops.

The yellow glow is still sort of there, but the worst of the paralysis seems to have passed. Rose curls up against her trainer's body.

"She should get back in her ball," Blue advises, frowning when Leaf makes no immediate moves to return her.

"She should stay off her feet," Leaf corrects.

She doesn't want Rose out of her sight.

* * *

"Thank you, by the way."

"What?"

"For the cheri berry, I mean."

Blue and Leaf are taking a break by a stream, just off the main road. It's a short break — both trainers know that being caught in Viridian Forest after dark can only spell trouble. Leaf in particular has absolutely _no_ plans on camping out in the middle of a place local horror stories call the "forest of teeth".

Rose is taking long, leisurely sips from the clear water, exhausted by the day's events. Ronan keeps a sharp eye on her from his spot in across the way, perched on a rock in the middle of the stream. Mary and Sky are even out of their pokéballs, scurrying around the bank and haphazardly picking at the remains of their lunch.

"Well, what the heck was I _supposed_ to do? Let it suffer, and watch _you_ have a panic attack?" Blue huffs, looking away. "Anyway. Aren't you going to let that thing out, already?"

He nods to the pokéball still strapped to her waist. Leaf is silent for a moment, considering. Sparky is the only one she'd kept in, unsure as to how it'd react.

"You know, it'd only be worse if you did it later," Blue says, and — Arceus forbid — is he actually being _helpful_? _Twice_? In _one day_? Leaf barely has time to wonder if she's dreaming before he speaks again. "I mean — at least here, it's sort of home, you know?"

Leaf pauses. She can't argue with that logic. She presses the _release_ button on the pokéball before she can talk herself out of it, the pikachu from earlier appearing in a flash of white light. Up close, she can see things she hadn't noticed before — how large it is, for one thing, and how it isn't an _it_ but rather a _he_. Neither Blue nor Leaf could get a proper look at his tail earlier to confirm gender, but it's notch-less now, telling her all she needs to know.

The pikachu looks around for a moment, utterly enthused at still being in the woods, his birthplace, before slumping noticeably when his attention turns back to the two humans in front of him. "Pika, _pi_."

Leaf furrows her brows at the obviously displeased pikachu. "Look, I know this isn't going to be easy," she begins, softly, "But I'd really like us to be friends, and —"

The pikachu snarls, cutting her off abruptly with a warning spark flaring from his cheeks before turning on his heel and bolting up the length of a nearby tree. Leaf knows he won't escape — the pokéball's tether is way too strong, so soon after capture — but he sure as hell isn't going to make this easy for her.

Blue snorts, sounding annoyingly like his usual self.

"He's pleasant, isn't he?"

* * *

 **A/N:** Leaf catches her first Pokémon! Pikachu was originally going to be a jigglypuff, just to spice things up, with a completely different plot in terms of capture, but I changed my mind when doing the chapter layout. The idea of Sparky is just so much more _fun_.


	6. 5 - Swarm

**A/N:** Chapter five. I just replayed Pokémon X and got to the part where AZ is talking about the war and, predictably, cried like a baby. There's too much about that game that's either super heartbreaking, or potentially super heartbreaking. I still can't get this one immortal!Serena fic out of my head.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Pokémon. I don't even know if I still need this disclaimer. You all know the truth.

* * *

 _but the monsters turned out to be just trees_

 _and when the sun came up_

 _you were looking at me. — taylor swift, out of the woods_

* * *

 ** _5 — Swarm_**

"Sparky! Boy, come on!"

"Pika, pika _chu_." The small electric mouse snarls from his spot in the tree overhead, his cheeks sparking angrily. Leaf has been trying to coax him down for nearly fifteen minutes, now — and she's getting impatient.

Blue yawns from his spot a few feet away, taking his time in gathering up all his belongings. His Pokémon are all safely tucked back inside their pokéballs, with the sole exception of Ronan, who's staring at Leaf's new teammate with no small degree of dislike.

"Squirtle, _squirt_!"

Blue glances down at his starter. " _You_ stay out of it. Do you _wanna_ get a thundershock to the face again?"

The water-type seems to flush with anger, puffing his cheeks up in annoyance.

"That's what I thought."

Rose, who had been quiet since Sparky had started his small act of rebellion, decides to speak up next. "Charmander! Char, _char_! Mander?"

Sparky glances down at the fire-type, and for one wild moment, Leaf actually thinks he might be considering whatever Rose had just said. And then there's a flash of malicious glee in his eyes, his cheeks spark wildly, and Leaf can only get out a shout of warning before Rose teeters back, narrowly avoiding a direct hit from a thunder wave, and another bout of paralysis.

As it is, she doesn't get paralyzed, but tears _do_ begin to form in the corners of her eyes, small hiccuping whimpers coming from her as she tries — and fails — to compose herself.

"Oi!" Leaf says, quickly scooping Rose up. She's a fairly good battler, Rose, but she can't _stand_ being teased.

Sparky is cackling from his position in the tree overhead, tiny paws clapped over his mouth as he lets out malicious little giggles.

Ronan bristles when he sees his crying friend, and her laughing tormenter. Ignoring his trainer's warning glance, he steps forward, barking out a challenge at Sparky. This gets the pikachu's attention immediately — the electric mouse takes a new battle stance, his tail twitching eagerly.

"Pi- _ka_ —"

" _Squirt_!"

Sparky is cut off, mid-thundershock, by a powerful blast of water coming from Ronan's mouth. The pikachu stumbles on the branch he's perched on before eventually falling, hitting the ground with a muffled _thump_.

He grumbles in annoyance. " _Chu_."

"That's _enough_ from you," Leaf says, lips pursed as she pulls Sparky's pokéball back out. His glare is absolutely _lethal_ as the bright light envelops him, pulling him back inside his capsule. She sighs in relief when her newest teammate is safely inside, away from a still-whimpering Rose and a seething Ronan.

A snorting scoff pulls her attention back to Blue, who's finally getting up off the ground, dusting his pants off. "Are you finally done?"

Leaf's lip curls in a scowl, her arms crossing angrily over her chest. "Yes, no thanks to you."

He shrugs, shoulders rolling up in an _oh well_ gesture. "He's not _my_ Pokémon. It's not _my_ job to train him, Leafy."

Leaf's scowl only deepens at the old nickname. "Nice, Blue. You still could've helped. Your Pokémon was nice enough to, at least." Her scowl melts immediately into a smile, which she directs at Ronan. "Thank you, by the way, Ronan."

" _Squirtle_!" he warbles; the water type looks immensely proud of himself, a look that only fades slightly when he catches Blue's eye.

"Whatever," he mutters, maneuvering around Leaf and back onto the main pathway. "Come on. It'll be dark soon, and I don't know about you, but I'd rather not still be here when that happens."

* * *

They continue on without a word more.

It's another half-hour of relative quiet along the main pathway, made only slightly less awkward by the Pokémon's giggling conversation. Blue is quick to ignore Leaf, and she does much the same — the silence is only really broken when Blue shouts unintelligibly at something.

Leaf manages to decipher the words "Look!" and "Pokémon!" before Blue is shoving Ronan forward with the toe of his shoe. The little turtle is startled, but quickly snaps back into focus.

"Squirt?"

"Look — is it a pikachu?"

Ronan looks like he really hopes it's not, and Leaf squints into the foliage — something is moving, something small and yellow and it might very well be another pikachu, but then a moment passes and it's a weedle poking its tiny head out of the brush.

It gurgles out a cry, and Blue's shoulders, which had tensed with adrenaline, slump very suddenly. "Are you _serious_?"

Leaf tries hard not to feel pleased. "Aw, what is it, Blue? Bummed I finally have something _you_ don't?"

Blue scoffs, turning his head to glare at her. "You know full and well that pikachu of yours is _untrainable_. At least, as long as he stays with you, he is — now, if _I_ was his trainer —"

Leaf's cheeks flush immediately at the jab. She wants to disagree — wants to disagree vehemently, but it's not as if she has any other Pokémon to prove her point with. Sparky _hates_ her, and will likely be hard to train, if he even is trainable at all. Leaf's almost positive the only reason _Rose_ obeys her is because she's well-bred and well-socialized, and too timid to argue otherwise.

"That's not true," Leaf says — but she sounds uncertain, and Blue knows, and he grins, nastily.

"Of _course_ it's true," he says, honing in on her insecurities, like he's always done and always will do. "I mean, it took you this long to even _catch_ a Pokémon. Face it, Leafy, you're not cut out to be a trainer — maybe you should just go home."

Leaf's uncertainty grows, a little, but she stands her ground and tries not to let it show on her face. "You're wrong. I — I'm gonna be a _great_ trainer. You don't know anything yet, Blue, we've barely just started —"

"And look at what a _wonderful_ start you're having —"

"You're _wrong_!" Leaf cuts him off in a near-scream, stamping her foot hard on the ground. Rose shrinks back at the sudden outburst coming from her usually quiet trainer, hiding her face behind her claws. "You're _wrong_ , Blue — you don't know _anything_ —"

The two devolve quickly into a shouting match, which soon turns so unintelligible that later, Leaf won't even be able to remember what she'd said. All either of them can focus on is being louder than the other, to be heard over the other's screaming.

The weedle is long gone — scared off by the yelling. And the two of them are so engrossed in their shouting, they don't even hear the buzzing.

It's Ronan who hears it first, really. And he begins to tug at his trainer's pant leg frantically, breathless with distress, and Rose does much the same with Leaf once she realizes what's got the other Pokémon so worked up.

And Blue's screaming. And Leaf — it's almost like she's seven years old again, and it's the very first day of school after her very first summer of _not_ talking to Blue, and he's gotten so mean, putting gum on her seat and getting Amanda to steal her pencils and making her cry, cry, _cry_.

The tears are streaming down her face when her Pokémon decides she's had enough, and hooks sharp claws into the side of her trainer's leg. Leaf jerks back, yelping slightly at the swift scratch attack, hissing when she sees the blood bubble on the edge of her calf. " _Rose_ , what are you —"

"See, that's exactly what I mean, _crybaby_. What trainer lets their Pokémon _attack_ them?"

" _Char_!" Rose snaps very suddenly, a complete one-eighty from her usually demure demeanor. The two humans pause at the outburst, and that's when they hear it — the buzzing.

 _Buzzing._

It's loud — deafeningly loud in the silence of the forest, and it's almost eerie, eerie enough for Leaf's heart to drop into her stomach. She knows this noise, was warned about this noise — she's read horror stories about the cause of this noise since she'd been old enough to understand what it all meant.

"Beedrill," Blue says, and it's a warning signal, enough of one for both children to pluck up their Pokémon and run along the main pathway. The buzzing is still so very loud, right behind them, too close, _too close_ —

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid,_ Leaf thinks, the tear-tracks from earlier cold on her face. God, she'd been so _stupid_. As soon as she'd seen that weedle, she should've known — they both should've known that weedle inevitably meant kakuna, and kakuna meant beedrill.

 _Angry, sound-sensitive beedrill._

Leaf gasps when she suddenly feels something shoot past her — it cuts through the air beside her head, and one quick glance to the ground confirms her suspicions: poison sting.

"They're _right behind us_."

"No kidding?" Blue yells, and presses ahead of her. More poison stings, just barely dodged, and Leaf feels Rose quiver in her arms.

"We're almost out of here," Leaf says breathlessly, but the truth is they'd ditched the main path a while ago, and were caught deep in the labyrinth. She doesn't know up from down anymore, caught in the trees as she is, but the beedrill do — and they're closing in.

"Well don't _lie_ to her," Blue snaps, and she has the intense urge to kick him in the shin for his idiocy. Rose whimpers again, and shifts in Leaf's arms, and she wants to say something to soothe her Pokémon, anything, but then she lets out another hiccupy cry and suddenly the back of Leaf's neck is very, _very_ hot.

The buzzing stops, almost immediately, as soon as Rose's ember is let loose — it's a frantic blast of fire, something from deep within the fire-type's belly, a response to the fear curling through her veins.

It's a few more moments before Leaf has the forethought to skid to a stop, and then a few moments more before she thinks to chance a glance over her shoulder.

The beedrill are gone — the buzzing, gone. There are a few black bodies in the distance, littering the forest floor, and her stomach flops in revulsion once she makes the connection. Rose is whimpering again, her face buried in Leaf's shoulder, her tail curled around her trainer's arm.

Leaf only snaps out of it when Blue's trembling voice reaches her ears: "Hey, Leaf? I think I found the main road again. Pewter City's just up ahead."

She is silent for a few moments longer before she nods. "Yeah — right. I'll be right there."

They make it to the end of the forest in absolute silence. Rose is still trembling in Leaf's arms, and making it to the Pewter City gate is an immense relief.

She expects them to split up immediately — certainly, now that they're out of the forest, there's no real _point_ to staying together — but Blue lingers, and she doesn't say a word about it. Truth is, she's still shaking too — truth is, she wants to go home too.

He won't say it to her directly, but she knows that's what he's thinking.

She rubs Rose's back absently as the fire-type's own trembling begins to subside, as the filtered light from the forest canopy lifts and they are met with the midday sun. Sh e thinks of her Pokémon — of Sparky, of what might have happened to him if something happened to her. She thinks of the Bulbasaur back at the lab, or sweet Ronan, who is as quiet and as fearful as his trainer is.

She thinks of how different things might be, if her little charmander didn't have such a big, big flame.

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm sort of regretting making them ten/eleven, but I wanted to keep it as true to the games as possible. It's gonna be a long growing process for these two.


	7. 6 - The City of Stone

**A/N:** Chapter six. Pewter City!

I don't know why the charmander line doesn't learn metal claw in other generations. Granted, it's not the _best_ move out there, but why try to fix something that's not broken?

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Pokémon.

* * *

 _young, but i'm not that young_

 _old, but i'm not that bold_

 _and i don't think the world is sold_

 _on just doing what we're told - onereupublic, counting stars_

* * *

 ** _6 — The City of Stone_**

Leaf's first really lucid thought upon exiting the city gates is: _This is not a city._

Maybe she's being picky about it, or maybe she's just feeling a little out of it, considering what'd just happened in the forest. But when she'd heard the word _city_ , she'd anticipated huge buildings, bustling streets, movie scenes in places like Castelia in Unova or Lumiose in Kalos, or _something_.

Not a town barely bigger than Viridian had been, whose only exciting feature was the museum by the gym.

Still, it's bigger than what she'd had in Pallet — and there's more reaching beyond, she knows.

 _More cities. Oceans. More forests._

The last one makes her shiver a bit, her knees still trembling a little from the incident in the woods. She'd known this — _traveling_ — might be dangerous, but she'd never considered _how_ dangerous until today.

 _But we're okay now,_ she tells herself, calmly. _We're in a city with people and nice, domesticated Pokémon and I can even see the Pokémon Center from here._

She pulls Blue out onto what must be the city's main street without a word, and he, surprisingly, allows himself to be dragged.

* * *

They don't talk about the beedrill.

It's like a switch flipping, once they enter the Pokémon Center. Blue immediately veers to the right with a square to his shoulders that immediately tells Leaf _not_ to bother him. He does what he needs to, heals his Pokémon and takes the room key from the nurse behind the counter.

Leaf follows suit, feeling oddly disjointed. _Disappointed_. Maybe that's the weirdest part. For all she had been terrified while in the woods, he had called her _Leaf_ when they'd made it out, and for some reason she'd thought a near-death experience would be enough to get them on similar footing.

No such luck, then.

Leaf sighs, pulling out Sparky's pokéball and handing it and Rose over to the nurse. Rose looks so hesitant to leave her arms, but she smiles at the little fire-type, and it seems to assuage her fears enough that she is able to go without much fuss.

The young trainer considers her shoes for a moment. She'd known it wouldn't be easy, but a part of her had sort of… _hoped_ that this adventure would be enough to bring back whatever time had lost in her friendship with Blue. She's _missed_ her best friend, whether she'd admit it or not.

But he's not here now. He's still the same old Blue, mean and snarky and completely ignoring her when he's upset.

She doesn't know why she's as surprised as she is.

* * *

Leaf gets her own room after her Pokémon are all healed up, but doesn't stop to settle down. There's still daylight to burn, after all.

"Come on," she tells Rose, who, admittedly, looks like she just wants to curl in a ball and _sleep_. But they've got a badge to win — it's what Leaf's focusing on now. Not the beedrill, not the woods, not her own desire to go back home.

The fire-type looks dubious, but obediently follows her trainer out into a makeshift training yard located just outside the center. A few other trainers — mostly young kids, probably from Pewter's academy — were already there, commanding their rattata or pidgey or the odd ekans.

"Char?" Rose mumbles. Leaf looks down, just in time to see her starter nod at the other pokéball at her trainer's waist. Leaf's hand curls around the pokéball on instinct, but she does not move to remove it.

"Maybe not today," Leaf says, haltingly. "I mean, electric-types aren't much use against rock-types anyway, you know?"

Rose gives her a look that seems to say _And I am?_ but she doesn't say a word more, her face growing serious as she steels herself for today. They'd never had a _real_ training session before, but Rose is sort of a natural battler anyway, and seems prepared for it.

Leaf, however, is a little more wary and unsure of herself. Blue's words from the forest are still echoing in her ears — _you're not good enough, just go home_ — and she tries to shake them off as best she can before referring to her Pokédex for a list of moves the charmander line can know.

"Let's see… anything against rock-types?" Leaf thinks she remembers that the charmander line can learn iron tail, but she's not sure if that's only by TM or not. One quick scan tells her that it is — she huffs in annoyance. All the _useful_ moves could only be taught by TM.

Well. Maybe not _all_ of them.

There's one move. Which could very well be their saving grace, despite the fact it's only got half the power of iron tail. It makes up for its lack of power with accuracy, which, while not perfect, is still pretty decent.

"Metal claw," she reads, biting her lip in consideration. "Sounds about right. Rose, do you think you can do it? It's — sort of like your scratch attack, except with a little more 'oomph' to it." She emphasizes the _oomph_ by splaying her fingers, wiggling them in the air in front of her.

Rose looks confused for a moment, and Leaf pauses, her hope faltering. But then the charmander's blue eyes slip closed and she concentrates for a moment, the light dancing off her claws seeming to flicker for _just_ a moment before fading again.

She opens her eyes and deflates.

"No, no!" Leaf says immediately, trying to buoy her partner's spirits. "That's a super good start! I mean, at least you can _do_ it, you know? You know the basics. I think I actually saw that before — when you were fighting Sparky in Viridian Forest, remember?"

Rose looks mildly uneasy at the mention of the forest before she nods, slowly.

Leaf's smile is gentle before she nods back. "Yeah — see, I remember. Now, we just gotta hone that power. C'mon — there's gotta be someone here we can battle."

* * *

There are, of course — the place is full of young trainers itching for practice fights. Plenty of them are Pewter City natives — kids who are a couple years away yet from being eligible to receive starters, and therefore have to rely on rattata and pidgey caught in their backyards or just outside the city.

They're no match for Rose, really — she out-levels them easily, her ember strong enough to reach them before their tackles or sand attacks can truly hit their marks. It's when Leaf tries to have her use metal claw that they get hit — more than once has the white glow flickered out just before it can hit its mark, allowing for their opponents to get an opening.

But the damage is minimal, and nobody's been able to beat her yet. By the time the sky finally becomes pinky-orange from the setting sun, both trainer and Pokémon are exhausted. Leaf's timed it, and Rose can keep her metal claw going for a total of six seconds. It's not very long at all, but it's certainly better than what they had to go on that morning.

* * *

"Tomorrow."

The word is uttered as she gets ready for bed, blue eyes locked on the pokéball sitting lonely on the Pokémon Center's bedside table. It's awfully unfair, Leaf thinks, that she and Rose had got in a full day of training and all they had with Sparky had been a fit earlier that afternoon.

"Char," Rose says, and she looks a little dubious as she follows her trainer's gaze. Leaf doesn't blame her for not liking Sparky's attitude, but they couldn't just _ignore_ him.

"Tomorrow we'll try again, and if that doesn't work…" _If that doesn't work, I have no idea what I'll do._

Leaf sighs. She doesn't _want_ to release her newest teammate, but she has the faintest feeling that if she can't do something _now_ , it would be pointless to continue with him. Maybe the time will have helped him — maybe he'd just needed to get used to the idea of being with a trainer now.

The young trainer bolsters her spirits with those thoughts, and turns to the bed, pulling her long brown hair up as she goes. Once the tendrils are twisted into a messy bun at the top of her head, she settles down, curling up beside her beloved starter.

"We'll figure it out tomorrow," she tells her, and Rose yawns, nodding.

She's sure they will.

* * *

 **A/N:** Not much else to say here, except I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! It felt filler-ish, but Leaf's going to try and train Sparky next chapter, and Blue... well. Blue. Heh.

Hope you guys have had/will continue to have a lovely week, and I'll catch you next update!


End file.
